The Fake Mind (Time Alchemist) Read online

  And there she was. My best friend. Dove Raysburg.

  She looked like she was sleeping, a book in her lap, the pages

  fluttering in the wind. Her eyes were closed, almost consumed underneath layers of her pale blonde hair. It had always been short, but now it had grown a couple of centimeters, brushing her shoulders. I fingered my own hair reflectively, still not used to how short mine was now. It used to flow past my shoulders in small waves, but now it barely tickled the back of my neck, thanks to a certain Fire Alchemist who was now an ally, so I let it slide.

  Dove wore a light top and skirt, and I could see the swells of markings cascading from her fingertips, disappearing under the fabrics of her sleeves, where the Runes probably ended at her shoulders. They were a darker red than before she was in her coma and from a random passerby they looked like her veins showing through translucent skin.

  That was just the shape of her Runes.

  Dove was the only Blood-Borne alchemist I knew, coming from a prestigious line of pureblooded alchemists from before. I knew that her mother had passed shortly after Dove was born, and I knew that her father was a Bone Alchemist, traveling through Europe with Dove in tow, teaching her the ways of the Blood-Borne alchemist, before he just disappeared from her life.

  It was thanks to Dove’s strange alchemy that my life had been saved. And when she had been in that coma…I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. After two weeks, Dove was still getting her

  strength back, little by little. She had been stabbed horribly and put into an alchemic-induced sleep, one that Julio Hawkins—the Healer of the Black Crown—claimed she would never wake up from. Or even die.

  I squeaked when something soft brushed my leg, but it was only Frankie Ann’s pet cat, Butterball. I glared the cat away, shooing him with my hands, but that one sound alone had stirred Dove awake. She blinked slowly, her ice blue eyes on me, and gave a small, but hesitant smile.

  “Welcome back. How was your training?”

  “Oh it was…good.” I explained lamely. But I couldn’t even press the details. I fidgeted in my spot, playing with the hem of my shirt as Dove, startled from losing her book page, flipped through the book to see where she left off.

  It was so awkward. How had it come to this?

  You know perfectly well why it’s like this.

  “I think I’m getting better,” I tried. “I practiced with my alchemy for the first time today and….I think I’m getting a better hang on things…”

  “That’s good.” Dove replied softly. “I’m glad to see everything is going smoothly.”

  I swallowed. “Yeah. Smoothly. Its’ very…smooth.”

  Frankie Ann poked her head out the backdoor, telling us that dinner was ready. I rubbed my sweaty hands on my shirt, realizing I

  needed to change before eating, and Dove got up, shutting her book. She didn’t bother to place the bookmark back; it stuck out from the very beginning of the novel, just like it had been every day.

  “Let’s go inside,” Dove said, then brushed past me and walked up the stone steps without even waiting. The screen door shut behind her, and I was left alone with a grumbling kitty cat begging for food.

  Of course. It was the same conversation every day: I would visit after practice, conversation would be short and awkward, Dove would forget her place in the book she was reading or the crossword she was working on…dinner, bathe, sleep, rinse and repeat. She couldn’t even look me in the eye for a full minute without turning away. Dove kept herself busy, helping Frankie Ann with small chores around the house or bookkeeping…things that took up her time, and kept her away from me.

  But how could I even blame her, after everything that’s happened?

  Dove was put in a coma by her younger half-brother—Leon Raysburg. But Leon wasn’t himself: he was actually possessed by Ivan Novak, one of the cruelest souls I had ever encountered. But while Dove was in a coma, Leon still had a grasp on his senses…even just a little…

  and disappeared in hopes of fighting Ivan’s control and to protect us both.

  And shortly after that, I had run away from the Black Crown in order to locate another alchemist: a man only known by the alias as White, who was responsible for Dove and Leon’s former mentor’s disappearance. Guinevere de Blanc, who’s alchemic text held the secrets and locations of an ancient Elixir that she had scattered all over the world.

  It was the Elixir that I needed to save Dove’s life. I had a few narrow life and death situations, some trust issues, got kidnapped, yadda yadda. It was thanks to that when I met Oliver, who had been kidnapped by White, and even found alliance with Roderick “Rick” Scott, a Fire Alchemist who was White’s former servant.

  White’s home had long burned down, but I had managed to get what I needed: the Elixir. I used a small shard to save Dove’s life, but I had to tell her everything that had happened while she was asleep: including how Leon was still out there.

  And probably fighting a losing battle.

  I had planned, immediately after her awakening, to search high and low for Leon. But the Black Crown had their reins tight on me. I wasn’t allowed to step foot out of Frankie Ann’s house (and believe me when I say she kept watch like a hawk). I was driven to and from practice, always under the watchful eye of a Black Crown employee. All the while, I had exhausted my brain into how I could find and save Leon,

  coming to the conclusion that the only true answer I had was to find the biggest missing piece of the puzzle: finding the missing immortal alchemist, Guinevere.

  Easier said than done.

  But after two weeks of nothing, it was no surprise that Dove was being so distant. I guess it didn’t help that I felt so equally awkward: in a lot of ways…I felt like I had failed her. And here I was, wasting time with the Black Crown when I needed to move, to find Leon, to find Guinevere…to end all of this once and for all.

  I may be the alchemist of Time…but even I couldn’t travel back in the past and do everything over again.

  CHAPTER 3

  I was in a cemetery, dressed in a familiar, beautiful black and green dress. But I was barefoot; two broken silver heels lay forgotten in a pile of rubble. The moon was large and full, and a layer of frost covered the ground and tombstones like powdered sugar over lumpy cakes.

  I felt a hand on my wrist, pulling me gently into the shadows. My heart fluttered when I met a pair of sparkling deep green eyes, with ridges of blue and brown melting in his orbs. He cracked a smile, his dimples showing. And we danced.

  His silver metal bands brushed against the pale skin of my arms, sending skitters up my nerves.

  “Emery…”

  That one word—my name—brushed off his tongue, making me feel as if I were wrapped in the softest cotton. He lowered his head, just so, our lips barely grazing….and he kissed me.

  And the world tilted. The frost that covered our toes melted, turning to warm slush. The tombstones crumbled into ash, mixing with the water, turning it dusty.

  When I opened my eyes, the moon was gone, replaced by a pitch black sky.

  Except it wasn’t the sky that was black—it was his eyes. Two pools of ink without any hint of light, like staring into a black hole.

  I couldn’t move. I was frozen. He smiled—a cruel smile—and brushed a hand through my hair, over my cheek, until it rested over my beating heart.

  “Game’s over.” Leon said. Then, out of nowhere, a silver dagger appeared in his hand—

  And ripped right through my heart.

  “Emery!”

  I jolted awake, struggling against the sheets. I felt around blindly until both of my hands covered my chest, feeling the familiar thrum of a ticking heart beating peacefully inside of my ribcage. It was still there.

  There was no wound, no hole. No scar, even. It was just a dream.

  Dream? More like nightmare.

  Still, it felt so real. I could feel Leon’s warm body against mine, holding me so gently. The roughness of his palms; the c
urve of his fingers, the lost warmth of his eyes when they met mine, and the slice of a cold knife piercing through my skin into the flesh of my erratic heart.

  “Emery?” Chrys whispered from my side. I turned over, seeing

  her one blue eye wide, but she was calm. Because she knew. She was the one who pulled me back. “Another nightmare?”

  I could only nod, glancing over at the bed where Dove slept, watching her chest rise and fall. Good. I hadn’t woken her up with another stupid nightmare. She needed all the sleep she could get. And it didn’t hurt that I shared a sofa bed with a Dream Alchemist.

  “Sorry that you have to keep doing that,” I whispered back. We huddled and pulled the blankets over our heads and waited until our eyes adjusted to the light to talk, like we usually did when I woke up from a nightmare.

  She shook her head, curls of blonde hair falling over her face.

  “Don’t worry about it. Was it the same one?”

  “Yeah. Same thing. Always in a cemetery—most likely Bonaventure—dancing with Leon. Except it wasn’t Leon, but was…does that make sense? And then in some way he would kill me.”

  Every night was the same dream, except a different outcome. On my first night back from White’s mansion, Leon and I danced under a full moon, and I saw a shadow stab him from behind—slicing me and him like a skewer. I didn’t think much of it at first. I thought it was just the built up stress of the past few weeks catching up and forming into nightmares.

  Except it happened the next night. And the next, and the next.

  And every single time I would die—whether it was by that shadow’s hand or Leon’s. And every time it was Leon, his eyes seemed to grow darker and darker…like a demon’s.

  Was this a sign that I was falling farther behind on saving him?

  Was my subconscious telling me it was too late?

  Did Leon Raysburg even exist anymore?

  Chrys pinched my arm and I let out a tiny yelp. She glared at me, saying, “No bad thoughts!”

  I groaned, but she was right: absolutely no dwelling on the negatives. Where there was a will, there was a way. There always was.

  There had to be.

  Chrys and I couldn’t fall asleep that easily again. It was only four in the morning; too early to really start the day, but I figured trying to rest for another hour or two couldn’t hurt. Chrys had other ideas. While I tried to get settled, tossing away the sweaty blankets and watched the creaky fan above us whir in a symmetrical pattern, Chrys had reached under our shared bed and pulled out a familiar book: an encyclopedia.

  Well, it was the folded pages inside the encyclopedia that really caught our interests. Papers I had “collected” from my trip to White’s mansion. I had stumbled upon them by pure accident trying to find the Elixir of Life that White was rumored to have kept hidden.

  It was files on us: the E-Alchemists. Or rather, White’s

  speculation of who was an E-Alchemist. There was a page on the three of us, and I had shared it with them in private only a week ago. Why hadn’t I given the list to the Black Crown? Simple: I still didn’t trust them.

  White was gone. I had pushed him down the stairs—I saw him laying there with a twisted neck. Broken. I had killed him…even if it wasn’t my idea to kill him. But I had no chance to really check when one of White’s minions, a Wind Alchemist by the name of Alyssa Denson had interfered and tried to kill me. A frozen bullet I had halted in Time (that was shot by White himself), had nicked her in the shoulder. When the Black Crown rescued us, they healed Alyssa…but she managed to escape.

  So I had no reason to worry about White. At least, that’s what I constantly told Chrys, who had been the victim of White before, when two of his lackey’s—twin Fire Alchemists Rick and Ashton “Ash” Scott (before Rick had turned good)—had kidnapped her right under the Black Crown’s nose.

  Besides the three of us, there had to be at least over a dozen or more articles of potential “E-Alchemists”. White was nothing if not organized: each child, ranging from only five years of age to the early twenties, had died in a usual way…but miraculously survived. There were some pages where the faces were crossed out with a red marker, and I could only assume that they didn’t meet White’s criteria or…

  something worse. But I was glad to know that ten of the pages had large question marks—LOCATIONS UNKNOWN.

  “I wonder how many more alchemists there are…like us…” Chrys sighed wistfully as we busied ourselves by studying the pages for the hundredth time, like two high-schoolers gossiping over the latest teen magazines. We sometimes busied ourselves and sorted the list from youngest to oldest, or separated them into male or female stacks.

  However, none of the children listed were even remotely close to our area. It seemed they lived somewhere more West, or even in other countries.

  “Who knows?” I replied, because I was curious. I’ve hardly been an alchemist for a year, but when I met Chrys it was such a relief to know that there was someone out there who shared your pain, who knew how harder it was to control your alchemy, and the consequences that came from it. Chrys was “turned” into an alchemist when she was in a bad car accident when she was only six years old. Her parents didn’t survive, and she was on the brink of death when the Chima family stumbled across the accident—and Ru’s mother saved her life, even thought it was a forbidden act. That’s how Chrys was “reborn”, adopted into the Chima family (but opted to keep her old family name; instead changing her first name to Chrysanthemum) and became an alchemist.

  Oliver’s story is pretty similar, though I think he must be the

  youngest of us to have changed. And it’s not a pretty story: his mother had a history of mental illness and just snapped one day, slashing her four year olds throat and killing herself shortly after. Oliver’ stepfather—

  who was an alchemist—saved his life in exchange for his alchemy, and Oliver has had the strange power of Voice Alchemy ever since; even though he didn’t know what it was. I guess his stepfather never could teach him, considering. But a couple of months before we met, his stepfather passed away from cancer.

  We were all blessed to have found someone—or be found—who was willing to go beyond the limits to save a beloved son’s…or a stranger’s…life.

  “When everything is…over…” I said softly, “We should just go try to find them. You, me, and Oliver. Without the Black Crown.”

  She brightened visibly in the darkened room, smiling her pretty, doll-like smile. “I would like that. I want to meet other alchemists like us.”

  I smiled back. “Me too.”

  CHAPTER 4

  What do you do when you’re trying to find your best friend—and the boy you really, really love—who’s body is currently occupying two souls too many? And of course, that extra soul belongs to a hellish, old alchemist bent on becoming immortal no matter the cost? You exhaust your energy into searching around the city? You sneak into the Black Crown’s records, chancing on getting caught?

  Or you try to take matters into higher hands? And by higher I mean immortal.

  So the next question is: how do you find an immortal alchemist who had went into hiding?

  Guinevere. Dove and Leon’s mentor; the oldest alchemist in the world. Literally. Once upon a time she was Nicholas Flamel’s apprentice.

  After his “death”, he had entrusted the Elixir of Life to her, and not his other apprentice, Ivan Novak (see: Evil Soul Bent on Immortality).

  According to what Dove (and a deranged Ivan) had told me, Ivan was so distraught by Flamel and Guinevere’s actions that he attacked her, planning to kill her and take the Elixir. But Guinevere had the upper

  hand, barely managed to escape—and she had to take a taste of the Elixir to see Flamel’s wish come true: for Guinevere to destroy the Elixir so no evil could come to the world.

  However, the Elixir is seemingly impossible to destroy. So Guinevere broke the Elixir into hundreds and hundreds of pieces and traveled throughout the world
to hide them. Every once in a while, she would retrace her steps to move the Elixir. That’s what Dove and Leon were doing, while hunting Rogue alchemists on the side for a little profit. Guinevere taught them both how to be good, proper alchemist, taking them in when Dove’s father left somewhere in Europe, and Leon’s mother was killed in a burglary gone wrong—and almost killing Leon, too.

  What was surprising to me was the fact that Dove and Leon aren’t really related—they are half siblings. They share the same father, but have two different mothers. Dove never even knew about Leon when she stayed with her Father, only to find out that, not only did she have a little half-brother, but that her father had slept with another woman after Dove’s own mother had passed away. And after her father went on some crazy mission and never returned, Dove was forced to move back to the States and live under the same roof of his mistress. That’s a lot for an eleven year old to take in, don’t you think?

  Leon also shared this very same story with me. He confessed

  countless times that he was always jealous of Dove—she was a beautiful, smart, talented Blood-borne alchemist, while he was a lowly Self Taught who’s father wouldn’t give him the time of day. He said he could never really see how much Dove suffered—he was only a kid!—and things had gotten worse when Leon was shot by a criminal.

  But Dove saved his life, using her alchemy. While his mother died. Leon didn’t know this: he thought Dove had purposely left his mother to die, which wasn’t true at all. His mother begged Dove to save Leon, because Dove’s alchemy was weak.

  And it was shortly after that incident that Guinevere came into their lives, and they haven’t looked back. They’ve always had a rocky relationship: Leon let his anger and pride get in the way of a true apology, and Dove felt it was best to carry the burden on her shoulders alone, never really trusting Leon to handle it. She probably just didn’t trust his heart…